Firecrest

There's a nice scrubby area just by the entrance to the yard with a few pine trees. There's nearly always a few Goldcrests here, and I'm forever checking them for anything rarer. Today, we'd just been doing some habitat hedging on the reserve, and on my way back into the yard for lunch a crest was flitting about in the area. I got a view of its bright greeny orange back, and then it turned to the side to reveal a white supercillium - Firecrest! It quickly moved into denser cover where I watched it skulking about for about ten minutes before it disappeared. Hopefully it'll bring in a few more visitors!

The only shot I got of it!

Yesterday, I found my first dead bird since I've started working here - a Herring Gull on one of the roost islands of the saline lagoon. Luckily there weren't many birds (or birders!) to disturb so we put on some waders and went out to collect it. I took both a buccal swab and a cloacal swab, and after a lot of form filling in, took them to the post office to get sent to a lab for analysis for disease. The bird has been frozen just in case a post mortem needs to be carried out.

Me swabbing a dead Herring Gull.

On Monday I had my first opportunity to photograph the Bittern. I first picked it up in a line of sedge at the end of the channel we created a couple of months ago, but it soon flew in and landed on the opposite side of the lake, unfortunately just behind a small island.

Bittern